Me gusta leer y ver la tele

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Curse of the West


I just finished reading (I wonder how many of my posts start with that phrase) The Art of Darkwatch, and I've thoroughly enjoyed it.
Darkwatch is a PS2 and Xbox videogame that came out last year. It's a first person shooter that combines the Wild West with vampires and steam technology. I've never played the game (I do all my gaming on my trusty laptop), but when I saw the book I remembered I had read about it when it first came out. I remembered seeing some illustrations of the main character, Jericho Cross, on the cover of some gaming magazines a while ago, and I remembered thinking they looked good. So I checked out the book. And I had a blast.
I am a big horror fan, and even though I'm quite ecclectic in my tastes, I seem to be on a horror streak. For the last few months, that's pretty much all I've read; and I guess that the fact that I'm working on a fantasy/horror graphic novel at the moment (more on that on my next post) does affect my mood indeed.
So, as I was saying, I got the book because I like horror, but also because I like drawing. And seeing as it was this book was one of those books compiling concept art, sketches, character and environments designs, production paintings, and all that plethora of stuff that's usually associated with the "Making of" and the "Behind the Scenes" documentaries, I knew I would enjoy it.
And enjoy it I did. The book is a fast read because it's packed with artwork; and said artwork is reproduced with great detail and quality (check out some samples here). The design and layout of the book is simple and effective, and the text accompanying the pretty pictures is actually revealing. I mean, who would have thought the game actually started as a comedy?
So yeah: go get the book. And if you don't want to spend all that money, Amazon has it on sale here. Have fun.

No comments: